Are influencers really the biggest problem facing waiting staff? Not compared with the customer who demanded I pick up her dog’s poo ...

Influencers have had a bad time of it at restaurants recently. There they are, just trying to record a quick video and take a few pictures of their lunch, and restaurateur Jeremy King (of the Ivy and the Wolseley in London) goes and writes an article saying they’re ruining the dining experience of “bona fide guests” – something he says staff are “desperately trying to stop”. I’ve read pieces calling TikTok the end of the London restaurant scene. Friends’ parents have even said they would get up and leave if they were sitting next to anyone filming their meal.

This surprises me. I have worked as a waitress in restaurants for more than five years, a job I love, and the joys of which most often come from the customers I serve. Of course, for every 10 great customers, you’re bound to get one that’s not so great – I’ve come across my fair share of those.

Polls put seat in three-way dead heat with Labour facing threats from Reform and Green party in once safe seat

The Gorton and Denton byelection is the biggest electoral test yet for Keir Starmer before what are expected to be disastrous results for Labour in the May local elections. Polls put the race in a three-way dead heat, making it nearly impossible to call.

The vote is particularly symbolic because of the threat Labour faces from Reform UK and the Green party in a once safe seat. Should Labour lose, it will put the spotlight back on Starmer’s decision to block Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, from contesting the seat.

After a nine-year-old girl was kidnapped and taken from Spain to Bolivia, authorities feared the worst. They found her in the rainforest nine months later – but that wasn’t the end of her ordeal

On 27 August 2013, a tall, spirited nine-year-old girl with long, well-brushed hair boarded an overnight coach in Barcelona. Nada Itrab was bright and observant. At school, she regularly came top of her class. Even now, she carried a notebook, eager to record the things she would discover on this trip. She had been given a camera, too – a cheap, lilac-coloured digital model which, since she was unused to luxuries, seemed to her like a treasure.

In eight hours, Nada would be at Barajas airport in the Spanish capital, Madrid. She would take her first flight, heading for Bolivia’s largest city, Santa Cruz de la Sierra. To her, the trip was an adventure, like something from the storybooks that she read at her local library in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, a city just south of Barcelona. The daughter of undocumented immigrants from Morocco, Nada had lived there since she was four.

Test yourself on topical news trivia, pop culture and general knowledge every Thursday. How will you fare?

Missing the Winter Olympics? Thanks to this week’s illustration by Anaïs Mims, here is your chance to discover whether you are gracefully landing a flawless triple axel under arena lights to the sound of your favourite tune, or merely skating on the thin ice of ignorance, arms windmilling gently as the cold reality of the answers draws closer. Fifteen questions on topical headlines, pop culture and general knowledge await. There are no prizes, but we always enjoy hearing how you got on in the comments. Allons-y!

The Thursday news quiz, No 236

Centuries-old wells restored to provide drinking water as parts of the country head towards “day zero” when no water will be available

A loud cheer and sounds of clapping reverberated around Bansilalpet, a neighbourhood in Hyderabad, when the first trickle of clean water dribbled out of the ground. After an 18-month effort to clear out 3,000 tonnes of rubbish and restore the stone walls and adjacent area, the 17th-century Bansilalpet stepwell had become a source of clean drinking water for the first time in four decades.

“It was such a joyous moment to see water collecting into the stepwell after clearing 40 years of garbage,” says Hajira Adeeb, a 45-year-old resident of Bansilalpet, who grew up seeing the well become transformed from the community’s water source to a dumping ground. “I visit almost every day. The area is clean and lit up in the evenings. I enjoy sitting there.”

After months of rows between factions with ‘fundamentally differing visions’, results of leadership election are at hand

An increasingly bloody battle for the soul of the leftwing Your Party set up by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana will come to a conclusion on Thursday, when the results of its leadership election will be announced.

After almost eight months of public spats, rows over money, accusations of sexism and rifts over policy and direction, Your Party is hoping to turn a page on the manifold misfortunes that have beset it since its launch last year.

Damning inquiry into services in England reveals falsification of medical records after ‘negligent’ care

• What is the national maternity and neonatal investigation and why was it launched?

• Cruel comments, racism and cover-ups: key findings from England’s maternity care report

Hospitals that cause harm and injury to women and babies during childbirth often resort to a “cover-up” of their mistakes, falsify medical records and deny bereaved parents answers, a damning report has found.

“Negligent” care has devastating emotional and psychological consequences for families, disputes between maternity staff have a “disastrous” impact on mothers, and ethnic minority and poorer women have worse outcomes because of racism and discrimination, Lady Amos said.

Banning families from being involved in investigations into the mistakes they encountered.

Conducting inquiries into errors which families think are poor quality and do not properly reflect what occurred.

Driving distressed families to instigate legal action as a way of getting at the truth after they were “denied openness and honesty in the aftermath of harm and bereavement”.

Failing to treat families who have lost a baby with compassion.

A new mini power station and lithium extraction facility near Redruth are set to bolster green energy and create jobs

Just outside the perimeter fence stand the hulking remains of grand stone engine houses, a testament to Cornwall’s proud tin and copper mining history.

But inside is a shiny new mini power station and lithium extraction plant that is once again accessing rich underground resources in the far south-west of Britain.

Resembling cigarette packet warnings, the ads highlight dangers and urge people to email MPs

Mumsnet has launched a campaign to introduce a ban on social media for under-16s featuring health warnings in the style of those on cigarette packets.

The deliberately provocative national advertising campaign calls for all social media to be banned for children under the age of 16. The images on billboards and social media make a number of stark statements related to health.

Exclusive: Police meet Lindsay Hoyle to explain error after Hoyle shared tip that Mandelson planned to flee UK

The Metropolitan police has apologised to the Commons speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, for accidentally revealing he was the source of a tipoff that Peter Mandelson supposedly planned to flee the UK, prompting officers to arrest the former ambassador.

In yet another twist to the saga of Mandelson’s departure from his post and the Met’s investigation into allegations he fed secret government information to Jeffrey Epstein, Hoyle told MPs on Wednesday that he passed the information to police.